The roads of our country have turned into the world's most dangerous death trap in the present days. The inhabitants of this country live in constant fear of getting killed in a road accident at any moment.
Not having such fear would be something strange, owing to the alarming regularity of the heartbreaking incidents on the very roads people use regularly.
An open secret is that many such deaths go unreported and/or unpublished as these are mitigated by involving dominant entities with money-settlement or by musclemen threatening the sufferers.
As a consequence, the subservient people are forced to sell the loss of their loved ones and forsake the right for justice to secure the remaining lives they care for.
Almost every day, many fatal road accidents still make it to the newspapers. Such accidents seem like a never-ending procession of death that we continue to view as a usual phenomenon of our daily life.
A most horrific road accident that gruesomely took a life recently was on December 2 at around 3pm inside the campus of University of Dhaka. Just hearing how the woman was brutally dragged to death after falling off from a bike and getting stuck underneath the killer's car for a long excruciating kilometer would tear any humane person's heart into million pieces.
On the other hand, the driver had the audacity to keep driving while having the woman suffer right below his car despite people's shouts to stop.
This is a clear case of committing murder followed by reckless driving. We hope the accused will be prosecuted under Penal Code 302, which says: “Whoever commits murder shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to fine.”
However, this action would only serve the law and order in this very case only. To be very straightforward, expecting this incident or consequences of the driver to raise awareness among others, no matter how dire the situation gets for the driver in upcoming days, would be foolish.
As long as there remain people in the system who would be “selectively” dutiful and “greedily” unfaithful to the nation, such offenses shall continue to climb higher heights of prominence.
As far as our assumption goes, the good people of the nation do not want much from these servants who survive on the money paid by the people as tax, customs, excise, and in other forms. We do not want them to be indiscriminately strict but humane. They should not be fragile to corruption but be the defenders of equity and justice.
Safeguarding the overall goodwill of their own people, securing the basic rights of every human being within jurisdiction, and freeing the nation from the curse of the death trap that is unsafe roads is the least the paid servants of the nation should consider gracing us with.
Among what a developing nation like us is going through, traffic issues may appear to be just a minor part, but it is instrumental in provoking thoughts as well as worries. Injustice and corruption have to be cleaned from everywhere.
AKM Lutfur Rahman is an experienced Transport Director who has worked at British High Commission, CARE Bangladesh and AISD (A US Embassy concern) and has also managed dealerships in Bangladesh inclusive of Land Rover, Volkswagen, and Audi. He attained executive education in automobile engineering and fleet management from the UK under commonwealth scholarship. Nafis Ehsas Chowdhury is a freelance contributor.